Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"

Abstract

As Mr. Eliot suggests, the moments between scene changes at a play are a time of tension and curiosity. The stage is dark, the audience is quiet, and each waiting member is left with his own thoughts. But man cannot bear "the darkness of God," nor does he find his own thoughts any more comforting. When the scene is changed and the lights are brightened, a new vista will provide an escape from this brief period of tension, just as Uthe hills and the trees, the distant panorama" had done before. In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, however, there are no scene changes. The "hills" become "a low mound," the "trees" a single wilted "tree," and "the distant panorama" a "country road" stretching on to infinity. In Waiting for Godot there is no escape.